Oakland Tribune photog wins police payout

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The Oakland Unified School District has agreed to pay $99,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oakland Tribune news photographer who said the then-schools police chief threatened to arrest her after he accused her of hitting his police car.

In October 2008, schools Police Chief Art Michel got into a profanity-laced confrontation with Tribune photographer Jane Tyska, who was covering an immigration rights demonstration.

Michel accused Tyksa of hitting his patrol car and inciting a riot and demanded that she get into the back of a police cruiser. When Tyksa protested, Michel yelled at her to get in or he would “stuff you in there.”

Tyska kept her video camera rolling during part of the incident in the Fruitvale District. At one point she invoked the name of veteran Tribune cops reporter Harry Harris.

Tyska, who was never arrested or charged with a crime, filed a lawsuit in December against the school district in federal court in San Francisco.

The suit said Michel “intentionally drove his official OUSD police car dangerously close to plaintiff in order to intimidate her, struck and grazed plaintiff with his official car and then harassed, verbally abused, physically manhandled, detained and arrested plaintiff, without any valid basis and no probable cause.”

Tyska’s attorney, Terry Gross, said today that once Michel realized that the encounter had been taped, he offered to let Tyska go if she erased it. The photographer refused, Gross said.

In a statement, Tyska said, “I’m very happy that the OUSD has taken responsibility for the actions of its former police chief. If it wasn’t for the video I shot, this abuse of power would never have come to light. It’s now illegal in a dozen states to record police activity, and this case is an excellent example of why that right needs to be protected. One of the reasons people often fear cameras is because they tell the truth.”

Michel, a respected photographer himself, retired in January 2009. A source said he left his post as schools police chief because he couldn’t get a waiver that would allow him to work and continue receiving his retirement benefits from the Oakland Police Department, where he served for 31 years before joining the small school district force as a lieutenant in 2007.

“From a conduct standpoint, what was represented in the video is not the type of behavior that we would like to see or that we condone in our employees,” school district spokesman Troy Flint said today. “It doesn’t project the image of service that we want to send to the city of Oakland and to our constituents. It was a regrettable incident, and we’re happy to put it behind us.”